When it suits their purposes and advances their political agenda, liberals are unabashedly elitist. Nonetheless, they recoil from that term when conservatives label them as such. Their reasoning is positively schizophrenic, confusing private behavior with public policy.

A true elite is one whose talents place him, objectively, at or among the top in his field. Tiger Woods is an elite golfer, in fact, the best in the world. Albert Einstein was an elite scientist, a genius. Michelangelo, an elite artist. An “elitist,” on the other hand, is one who is not necessarily talented or brilliant but who simply regards himself as such, and who would subordinate others to his will.

Al Gore, for example, is certainly not an elite scientist. In fact, he’s not a scientist at all. He’s not a physicist, climatologist or meteorologist. He’s a politician, and when it comes to the highly debatable subject of climate change, he’s just a guy with an opinion. As an advocate for a doomsday version of the theory of human-induced global warming, he selectively and misleadingly brokers the work of actual scientists and other polemicists in this field. To the extent that Gore would dictate how people, businesses and governments behave in the course of imposing environmental and economic policies, he’s a pretentious elitist in the worst sense of that term.

Liberals profess to be the champions of the common man. But they don’t trust the common man to make the right decisions. As inveterate busybodies and nannyists, they presume to protect us from ourselves through government mandates and regulations on everything from what we eat, to how we travel, to where we live, to what we say; all written by liberal elitists who know what’s best for us.

If I’m having open-heart surgery, I’d certainly want to be operated on by an elite surgeon. I want an elite builder to construct my home. As a conservative and an individualist, I’m a firm believer in meritocracy. Excellence deserves to be suitably rewarded and doing so breeds more of it. This is justice based on ability and performance. The liberal notion of “social justice” is based not on ability but on need. As Karl Marx put it: “From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need.” In that sense, presumptuous liberal elitists would wield the heavy hand of government to downgrade those whose ability has earned them truly elite status while elevating those of lesser ability.

One liberal pontificated that he wants only the “best and the brightest” in government to “run our country.” I suspect he and I would disagree about who the best and brightest are and what qualities earn them that distinction. My list certainly wouldn’t include Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama, to whom I don’t defer as my intellectual superiors. His list probably wouldn’t include Ronald Reagan. Moreover, I don’t want government or politicians to “run our country.” That’s a statist view. The state is not society; it’s a subset of society. It’s the height of pretentious elitism to believe that any panel of bureaucrats is smart enough to “run” our intricate market economy. The Soviets tried that.

I’m no anarchist. I recognize the need for government but I believe in limited government. I want society to mostly run itself. And I’d extend the freedom of personal choice to others, within a reasonable body of laws, running the risk that some might make illiberal choices. That’s the nature of a free society.

I agree with William F. Buckley Jr., who once declared that he’d rather be governed by the first 400 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the faculty of Harvard.